Birpal knows me like no other man does. When I call, he answers the phone with “Hello, where to now?” — I can hear him smile into the phone and it makes me smile, too. I feel like I can get a handle on the enormity of the task at hand, of the hundreds of items strewn across the room, and look into the yawning mouths of three large suitcases without trepidation. He carries my endless cartons of books up and down the floors the way Samwise Gamgee carried Frodo Baggins up Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings — staggering under their weight but sure not to stumble and fall. He knows exactly what goes into which suitcase and he knows that he must not comment on the green stuffed toy (which is equal parts dog and rabbit) I’ve had since 2008. Once, he accidentally opened a bag full of my underwear — the sight of lacy nothings did not unnerve him in the least. Birpal is the best extraction-relocation man there is in Delhi. And he’s mine.
I’ll have to take some credit for his growing competence, though. Since we first met in September 2012, Birpal has helped me move house five times. That’s one-third of the number of times I’ve changed apartments in the capital since I came to study in Delhi University in 2003. That’s right, 15 times, and so far, all I have learned from my jaunts here and there is a) I love being single, b) I hate being single and c) I cannot live alone.
When I came to Delhi, I left behind a room of my own in my parents’ apartment in Kolkata. A Manipuri girl and I squeezed ourselves into a windowless rectangle in Hudson Lines, north campus, where during the monsoon, the Punjabi landlady told us not to hang our wet clothes on a nylon rope inside because it would spoil the “kamre ki aesthetics”. I moved to another apartment where the girls were lively and prone to reading my angst-ridden diary, so I shifted to another flat where the girls wouldn’t let boys in — I upped and left again. My final year in college, I found like-minded young women who threw themselves into the pursuit of happiness, irrespective of where it could be found.
As soon as I graduated and snagged my first internship at a newspaper, I packed up all my things (which, by now, included beds, more suitcases, trunks, more cartons of books, and flatmate’s dog) and moved to Jungpura. South Delhi is where it was at. We had it all planned: Turquoise Cottage-outings, browsing at Midland bookstore in Aurobindo Market, drinking with cool people at 4S in Defence Colony. It didn’t matter that we had little money — the proximity to hipness was enough.
My flatmate and I, still friendly but more cautious about each other now, rode on the back of a truck, balanced periously as we zipped past Rajghat, ITO and into a neighbourhood known for housing “creative log” — we would fit right in.
Except that the Sardar landlord and his wife stood in front of their house at 11 pm and refused to give us the keys. “The broker never told us when you’d arrive, yeh koi time hai aana ka, we don’t want your money, so go,” said the wife, whose bleached upper lip twinkled under the street lamp. Our first big move, we hadn’t known that the permit for trucks was only available from 9 pm-5 am. The movers had left, all our belongings were on the side of the road. I had tears, and I was prepared to shed them now. I summoned a downpour — Accio lacrimosa, my own magic command — but they remained unmoved. I kicked my roommate to join me. She coughed and mewled dutifully. Soon after, the couple relented. “Only because you are two single women who have nowhere to go,” they said generously while handing over the keys.
Oh the curse of being a single woman in Delhi! The brokers con you — “Top floor, separate entrance, no jhanjhat.” If it’s at the back of the house, the entrance is likely next to a sewage drain (hello dengue/malaria!); if it’s in the front, you have to climb up the stairs past the aging relative who never leaves the balcony.
The Delhi landlords demand it all — your money, your patience and your chastity. Beware a landlord who says, “Boys allow hai, no problem, we are modern, no chik-chik.” Your boyfriend better be Batman or some superhero, a fabulous cross-dresser or a parkour expert, because nothing, I repeat, nothing will keep that spying fossil and the rest of the building from raining judgement on you. Soon, they refuse to repair faulty fittings and hike up the rent above the standard 10 per cent, so you must relocate, yet again.
Last year, I contemplated returning to Kolkata for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was the matter of paying rent. It’s cheaper there and possible for me to rent out an entire apartment as opposed to a single room in Delhi. Because here, as a single woman, I find that the cost of my freedom and independence shows no signs of decreasing and my paycheck shows no inclination of catching up. At 31, I don’t know which I want more — a boyfriend to play house with or a single woman who is not due to marry in a few months and who I can share a flat with. They’re both becoming endangered species. But I didn’t come so far to give up, so if I’ve got to pack and move, I just do.
Each time I pack, the exercise of putting my life in boxes is exhausting. Forget the physical pain of squatting, getting up, bending, etc. I am confronted with the choices I have made in my life in the past couple of years — every other item I touch is a memory, a time machine that takes me back when all I should do is move forward. So I make sure to play Tracy Chapman (Tracy Chapman or Collection), or Joni Mitchell (Blue, Court and Spark, Clouds) and fold the motivation dresses I buy but am yet to fit into, the old letters I can’t throw away even though there is no love left, postcards from places I don’t know if I’ll ever visit. I start to feel sorry for myself, for the lack of security and stability in my life, flinching at the thought of borrowing the security deposit from my father yet again… Each time I pack, I have a hearty cry. Then I call Birpal.